Archive for April, 2014

A screenprint on paper titled “Rural Landscape” made by Syd Fossum in 1947. Gift of the Crump Family in Memory of Bob and Pat Kennedy Crump.

For more information or to purchase a photograph of this item, view this print in our collections database.

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Letter from Charles Goddard, at Fort Snelling, to his mother telling about when he will receive his discharge, a recent letter from Matthew Marvin, and good wages for lumbermen
Partial transcription of the letter:

Ft. Snelling Minn, April 30 /64
Dear Mother
As I expected the Regiment will not get their discharge and pay before Tuesday night next- until which time we will get pay and rations. The Regt was reviewed by Gov. Miller, Sibley and staff and had the last dress parade that some of them will ever be on. Col. Adams addressed the Regt. also and Miller. We have no roll calls – do not mind the officers nor in fact are we soldiers for evry man calls him-self a citizen, although we have not got our papers yet we can do any thing – go any whare we pleas with out the consent of any one – at least the boys do so and do not get in any trouble. I think I wrote you that I got a letter and photograph of Mat. Marvin, our Orderly (or was)[.] he was getting along quite well and had been out to see some friends of Capt. Peram’s – friends or relations by the name of Saunders…There are some good chances for lumberman up here. they are getting from $3.00 $3.50 per day for men that want to go on the drive and men that want to go down on the rafts can get $2.00 per day and I call these pretty good we ges. I think that you need not look for me before next Saturday, for they say that Nellson cannot get the muster rolls ready. I feel as if I could take some of these officers by the neck and choke them until they could take hold and do there work […] getting on a “bum” in St. Paul every night.
All are getting along fine that you know[…] Love to Brother Orren and a good deal to yourself[…] C. E. Goddard

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Pair of wooden Civil War-era drumsticks made by W. Raymond of Winona, Minnesota. They were among the contents of the Meighen Store, in Forestville, Minnesota.

For more information or to purchase a photograph of this item, view these drumsticks in our collections database.

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Awards were recently granted to several scholars to support research on Minnesota history conducted in the Minnesota Historical Society’s Gale Family Library. We are very pleased to share the winners of these grants and what they will be working on with you. All recipients will write MNopedia articles and several hope to produce Minnesota History articles as well.

William Millikan’s project is Financing the Development of Minnesota with Indian Lands. As Rhoda Gilman said in her letter of recommendation: “…his proposed work on the use of public land acquired through Indian treaties to underwrite financial instruments that could be used by entrepreneurs to develop private industrial, transportation, and mining empires has the potential to have not only regional and national significance, but possibly international as well.”

Ellen Manovich is a graduate student in history at the University of Minnesota researching the history of four Minneapolis neighborhoods surrounding the University of Minnesota. The committee was pleased to recommend funding some urban history, since Minneapolis is especially lacking when it comes to good histories.

Bruce White will compile an annotated bibliography of primary sources on 19th-century MN politician Henry Rice, looking toward writing a biography of Rice once those are in hand. Rice was very influential in Minnesota and regional politics and in Indian affairs, but unlike Ramsey and Sibley he left only a small collection of papers.

Andrea Klein Bergman is a social scientist who has studied vulnerable populations, including immigrant refugees. She has done oral histories with the Bhutanese community in Minnesota and here proposes “a case study of the socio-cultural integration of Tibetan Americans in Minnesota,” with a view to recommend changes in service to Tibetan immigrants to help them participate fully in Minnesota society.

Lois Glewwe will continue her research on the life of Dakota missionary Jane Smith Williamson, sister of Thomas Williamson, who founded the mission to the Dakota at Lac qui Parle. In addition to Williamson’s personal story, Glewwe will investigate the mission school and their relationship with government schools for Native children.

Therese Cain brings training in political science and nonprofit management to her proposal to study why a single county in rural western Minnesota has voted Democratic in national elections since 1932, while all the surrounding counties have voted Republican. Why is Swift County Blue? is the first stage of a project that Cain and her fellow researcher, anthropologist Sharon Doherty, have planned for a book.

Retired law professor Howard Vogel, a contributor to the award-winning bookMni Sota Makoce: Minnesota is a Dakota Place and a student of religion as well as law, will study Stephen R. Riggs’s role in the Treaty of Traverse des Sioux. Recently Vogel brought his work on Restorative Justice to the question of the US-Dakota War of 1862 and its results for the Dakota people. Looking at Riggs’s role in that treaty is part of a larger project to understand how Christian missionaries understood their role of proselytizing the Dakota.

Diary entries by Matthew Marvin, Corporal in the 1st Minnesota Regiment who was wounded at Gettysburg. Marvin is convalescing at the United States Marine Hospital in Chicago, Illinois. On April 25 he writes, “Buried myself Reading & playing chess & chequors[.] Though the weather is very unpleasant the shiping is very [...ry] good passtime to look at them & think of them[.] Weather cold Rain[.]”

Marvin recently had his photograph taken, and has been including copies with the letters he has been sending, including the letter he sent to Charles Goddard of the 1st Minnesota on April 11, 1864.